Bought by Her Italian Boss(23)

He gathered her tense form into his lap, looking at the pugnacious glare  she tilted up at him. He pressed a kiss against her firmly closed  mouth.

"I'm hearing you," he told her, thinking about those times when he  caught a faraway, melancholy expression on her face. He had put those  moments down to her distress over the photos, but there was more to it,  he realized now. She was a woman longing to put down roots. "I'm not  dismissing you. But there's nothing I can do right now."

"And nothing I can do either, apparently."

"Fold my socks?" he suggested, since she often nagged him to pick his up.

She snapped her teeth at him in playful retaliation.

He kissed her again and this time she softened and kissed him back.

But he was still thinking about her discontent when he broke from his  meeting with the Hong Kong consortium and picked up a message from  Paolo: Fabrizio is asking for leniency in exchange for full disclosure.  We could see charges against Jensen early next week.

The tide was turning.

The need for their affair was almost over.

* * *

Gwyn was in a type of shock as they returned to Vito's penthouse less  than a week later, mind still caught up in all that had just been said  at the press conference and after it. Be careful what you wish for, she  thought bleakly. She had been anxious to embark on her future and here  it was.

"I wish to say a special thank-you to Miss Ellis for her patience and  unwavering integrity during this entire process," Paolo had said. "Due  to the sensitive nature of the investigation, we asked her not to make  any public comments during a time that has obviously been very  distressing for her."

The cameras' lenses had shifted to where she had stood next to Vito,  trying to capture her reaction, which she had fought to keep  noncommittal. Inside, she'd been screaming in agony and still was. This  was it. The End.

Paolo's private words to her afterward were what had really done her in.  Handlers had moved them into an anteroom and scattered. Vito had  stepped away to call his assistant with some instructions.

"Grazie," Paolo had said to Gwyn, not showing any reaction when he shook  her hand and found it clammy. "We will pursue defamation charges on  your behalf and that could result in prison time for Jensen, but I  realize that does nothing to compensate you for all you've lost. Vito  promised you a settlement, sì? Hire a good lawyer and begin those  negotiations immediately. I want a number so I can add it to our list of  damages when Jensen is tried."

"Of course," Gwyn had murmured, as if she had the first idea how to hire  any kind of lawyer, let alone a "good" one. Her mind had started  buzzing the minute Vito had called her to say he was sending a car and  was bursting with a bigger swarm of bees over how abruptly this press  conference ended the need for their affair.

She was devastated. Her very nascent and juvenile crush had become something real and deep and heart-wrenching.

She had started to think of his beautiful apartment as her home.

Vittorio had modern tastes and liked space around him. The penthouse had  high white ceilings and three bedrooms, one that he used as an office,  off a tiled upper hallway that he called a loft. It was nothing so  modest as that. It was a second story. The main bathroom had His and  Hers powder rooms on opposite ends of a tub that they easily, and  frequently, shared. This flat was wall-to-wall understated luxury, from  the designer furniture to the kitchen that sparkled with stainless steel  functionality, positioned to allow the cook to visit with guests while  stirring and chopping.

High-end art, lush plants and family photos rounded off the space into a  haven of warmth and welcome. Her snapshot of her almost family, her own  image with her arms around Henry and her mother, sat on the night table  next to her side of the bed.

Gwyn swallowed, trying to hide her devastation at leaving all of this,  along with the man who lived here, by kicking off her heels beside the  front closet, then realized she would have to pack them. She couldn't  wrap her brain around what that would entail so she moved to where she'd  left her tablet on the sectional before the big screen TV, pretending  she was checking email.

"Are you hungry?" Vito asked behind her, shrugging out of his suit  jacket and tossing it across the back of the sofa. "I'm going to make  coffee."

She wasn't, but she loved cooking with him, enjoying the foreplay of  brushing bodies, senses stimulated by the aroma of fresh ingredients,  the sizzle of a pan and the rich textures and flavors they seemed to  create together.                       
       
           



       

The full scope of all that she was losing gripped her and she lifted her head to stare blindly through the bright windows.

"Cara?" He was right behind her, making her start. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Everything.

His gaze dropped to her tablet. "Something has upset you? Do not tell me  you're reading reactions to today's press conference. Stop polluting  your head that way."

"No, um-" She glanced at the tablet, saw Travis's latest message,  started to gloss past it, then decided to confront it. Just pull the  bandage off in one ruthless yank. She showed him what Travis had  written.

I saw the press conference. Does this mean you're coming home?

Vito's gaze came up and slammed into hers. He was so handsome. Brutally,  impossibly handsome with his white shirt and striped tie and tailored  pants with their knifelike creases, then black leather shoes glossed to a  mirror finish. She didn't know any other man who could wear a vest with  the buttons offset at an angle like that, the edge piped in silver, and  look so suave.

She longed to trace that piping, touch those buttons. She very much  needed the connection that seemed to have been building between them  with each physical encounter, but what did they really have? Sex. That  was all.

"We haven't really talked about the next steps. I imagine I will be  leaving?" she said, insides hollow. "Now that we don't have to pretend  anymore?"

They weren't pretending. That's what his cocked brow said.

She licked her lips. "Because it would make it pretty obvious we got  together just for show if I left right away, wouldn't it?" Tossing the  tablet onto the sofa, she jerked a shoulder. "I could say I'm going to  see family and we could let it die off from there."

"We could," he said carefully, so emotionless a scalding pain rose behind her breastbone.

For a moment she couldn't even breathe, let alone speak or move. Then  she found a smile of false bravado and brought her hands to the sides of  his head.

His hot palms settled on her hips, holding her off as he gave her a questioning look.

She didn't have a very strong grip on her emotions, and keeping anything  from him these days was pretty much impossible, but she tried to affect  nonchalance.

"Don't worry. I'm not staking a claim. I'll figure it out in a little  while. But I'd like to leave you with something to remember."

Then, because she had spent a great deal of time devoting herself to  learning what turned him on, she did everything she could to arouse him.  She rarely instigated lovemaking unless they were in bed. It was  shyness and lack of confidence, but today she left inhibition at the  door and pressed herself against him suggestively.

She ran her hands over him with the proprietary touch she usually  suppressed. His shoulders were a landscape of masculinity, appealing to  the primal woman in her that sought protection and provision. His  buttons opened to, first, the warm silk of his shirt, then the satin of  his skin, with the fine hairs on his breastbone and a dark arrow to his  navel that teased her lips as she kissed what she exposed. His nipples  were sharp against her tongue and her teasing made him suck in a quick  breath.

She kissed him, not just letting him know she was receptive, but taking  the initiative, not hinting that she wanted to make love, but demanding  it. It was exhilarating to be this assertive.

He let her bare his chest and open his pants, swiveling so he leaned his  hips against the back of the sofa and stepped his feet apart, drawing  her into the space. Then he cupped her face so he could kiss her, not  taking control, but not passive. Never passive.

Her own clothes loosened, suit jacket falling away, bow at her neck  tugging then falling into ribbons of blue polka dots on white. Vito drew  back long enough to pull the sheer confection over her head then  brought her against him again, skin to skin, both of them murmuring  approving noises.

Vito had experienced the advances of women in the past. Often it was a  power play or a quid pro quo of some kind. Sometimes he relaxed and  enjoyed it, other times he set the pace that suited him.

Gwyn, guileless, sensual Gwyn, undid him. She was so very entrancing in  her conservative exterior and her abandonment to lovemaking, especially  today as she licked into his mouth, rubbing against him in a way that  was not so much practiced as pure. She was trying to turn him on, but  the way she grew bright-eyed and flushed with hectic color was even more  arousing.